Tower Defense

CityVille Invasion, a tower defense style game, has just been released for both iPhone and iPad. You'll play the commander general that's tasked to stop Dr. Mayhem from conquering the world. CityVille Invasion is a joint effort by both Hasbro and Zynga.

The original Toy Defense launched back in Spring 2012, offering a WW1 based tower defense game where all the fighting was conducted by toy soldiers. Fast forward 12 months and developers Melesta Games are back with a sequel -- Toy Defense 2. It's still tower defense, it's still toy soldiers, but we're in a new period of history. This time out, we're in WW2.

War Grimoire HD is a tower defense game that invites players to immerse themselves into the world of mystery and unlimited adventure and takes them through an epic adventure unfolding in remote Medieval times.

Beautifully animated cartoon intro and step by step in-game guide

60 kinds of upgradeable weapons to equip your soldiers

30 visually stunning environments to explore with different monster combination

6 relaxing unlockable mini-games: get new weapons by winning a mini game

High definition 3D graphics and spectacular rendering effects

Online worldwide leader boards with OpenFeint and Game Center

Original music soundtracks and high quality sound effects

If you pick this one up, let us know what you think! Check out the trailer and screenshots after the break.

With this weeks sale of Square-Enix games in honor of Chaos Rings release, I thought it fit to review Crystal Defenders for iPad. This is a very fun strategy/tower defense game: hardcore players apply only.

Crystal Defenders has you assume the role of master strategist as you place your units on a map to destroy the oncoming 30 waves of monsters trying to steal your crystals. Before you begin a game, you have to choose which game style you want. There are three to choose from: W1, W2 and W3. W1 is the easiest and simplest. The maps are not difficult and you do not have any power crystals (more on that later). W2 brings in the use of power crystals during gameplay and more challenging levels. W3 is the ultimate challenge. New monsters, units and very challenging maps.

Like Star Wars? Like tower defense games? Then you might want to take a look at THQs recent release Star Wars: Battle for Hoth for iPhone.

The game premise is that of all tower defense games; prevent your enemy (in this case the Imperial Empire) from reaching the other said of the map. As you play the game you get a fairly diverse set of units to deploy in defending Hoth. But, before I get into that, let's look at play mechanics first.

You start Battle for Hoth with some simple ground troop units and a shovel. The shovel allows you to alter the landscape of the level and force units to move a certain route. This is a great tool in later levels as you can really funnel the Empire to their doom. When you place your units and they destroy a wave of Imperials, you are rewarded with a green wrench icon you have to touch to collect. This gives you points to build or upgrade units. You have to be fast though if you wait too long the wrench will change color to orange then red, decreasing the point value. Wait too long, and your points are gone forever.

As you play through the 15 levels you unlock more types of units including; seated blaster units, radar lasers, turrets, snow speeders, x-wings, shield generators and ion cannons. Some of the more complex units like the ion cannon, shield generators and turrets require an energy generator placed next to them. The energy generator is required to power those units. If you upgrade a unit (say the shield generator) without upgrading the energy unit, you run the risk of losing power to that unit so you always have to keep it in check.

You can upgrade your existing units to make them more powerful and sell them as needed. I found the most fun in the game building up units under the safety of the shield generator and then taking out AT-ATs with relative ease once my units were upgraded to the maximum.

When writing this review, I have to admit I had some distaste for this game. Simple and not a lot of variety in what appeared to be a shameless use of an awesome gaming license. However, after I made my video review above, I am having a bit of a change of heart. I think I am trying to make Battle of Hoth more than it is; a simple Star Wars-themed tower defense game to kill a view minutes in your day while standing in line to get groceries. Should you get it? If you are a Star Wars fan I think you will enjoy. If not, I would pass.